The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) plans to roll out several initiatives this week in response to the administration’s new artificial intelligence (AI) executive order, including AI platform access and cybersecurity directives, acting CISA Director Nick Andersen said on June 3.
Speaking at AFCEA’s TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore, Andersen said CISA has significant responsibilities under the recent executive order and is already preparing a series of near-term actions.
“Before the end of the week, we’re going to be rolling out some specific artificial intelligence platform access for our federal government-wide partners,” Andersen said, adding, “We’re going to be rolling out binding operational directives that are going to focus on vulnerability remediation and vulnerability management … for our extended enterprise.”
He said CISA is also modernizing how it manages “overall federal security risk” and reassessing how agencies evaluate risk tied to system authorizations.
President Donald Trump signed the AI executive order on June 2. The order asks AI companies to voluntarily submit their advanced AI models to the federal government for testing “up to 30 days before they plan to release such models to other trusted partners.”
It also tasks several agencies – including the Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and CISA – with strengthening U.S. cyber defenses to address emerging threats posed by advanced AI capabilities.
Andersen outlined three broad areas of AI security, including securing advanced AI models, using AI to improve cyber defense, and helping organizations understand the governance and data risks associated with adopting AI.
“CISA is going to have a foot in every single one of those broad buckets,” Andersen said, pointing to efforts ranging from work with frontier AI model companies and “clearinghouse-type initiatives” to expanding access to the AI models themselves.
A major objective of the order, he emphasized, is using AI to help reduce cyber risk and address aging technology across government networks.
“How can we actually use it as a good defensive tool, and how is it going to help us to reduce attack surface exposure?” Andersen said. “How are we going to use [models] to so quickly help to drive down some of this tech debt that we’ve got?”
Andersen called the AI executive order “a fantastic success story” and said additional guidance will follow in the coming weeks.